Online designer products


Im interested in finding out if any of you use web designers that are online like a site builder type product. Or wether you use software like frontpage or dreamweaver.
What percentage of the public do you feel would need an easy online designer?

My toolkit includes

offline
- zend studio (http://www.zend.com/)
- adobe golive v4
- adobe photoshop v5
- topstyle css editor

online
- any number of validation tools
- devguru's javascript manual (http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/ecmascript/quickref/javascript_intro.html)
- PHP.net (http://www.php.net)

but basically, the hard work gets done on desktop tools,
online is used for reference, testing and checking

and I'm not fond of the output from dreamweaver :mad:

Sarah

There are only really two ways to develop a successful website. (By successful I mean one that makes you money). 1) is hire a professional that really know what they are doing or 2) buy the proper software and learn how to build a web site. There are no short cuts!

Just my 2 cents

Paul

There are only really two ways to develop a successful website. (By successful I mean one that makes you money). 1) is hire a professional that really know what they are doing or 2) buy the proper software and learn how to build a web site. There are no short cuts!
I don't know if I would completely agree with that.

I have seen some really cruddy sites that do quite well and on the other hand I have seen some great looking sites that were completely unprofitable. It really depends on things like the product or service offered, customer service, is it a niche market, etc.

Ideally one should have a professional image on the Internet but that in itself is not always a guarantee of success.

I use Codebuilder for everything. I've never liked the WYSIWYG approach. I can write HTML code that is cleaner (as can most anyone else).

Website design is part of the equation. You need traffic to have the design pay off at all.

If someone is using an online type of template-web-site approach, they probably would be better served hiring someone. I'm yet to see the online tools really put out something customizable enough. (But I haven't looked really really hard either).

My two cents.

I don't know if I would completely agree with that.

I have seen some really cruddy sites that do quite well and on the other hand I have seen some great looking sites that were completely unprofitable. It really depends on things like the product or service offered, customer service, is it a niche market, etc.

Ideally one should have a professional image on the Internet but that in itself is not always a guarantee of success.


I guess my question to you is, if you were planning to build a new website for your business, would you be willing to gamble on what you are calling cruddy. I agree there have been some sites that are successful despite the lack of exceptional visual design, but they must have had some of the right elements or have had an extreme marketing plan behind it. Design is a matter of taste but the functionality that today's web users want to see at a website is critical. My point in the previous post was that I don't think the online web tools give you enough flexibility as desktop site construction.

I think that most people that are attacked to the online site building scenarios are those with no knowlwdge of web site construction and end up as confused as when they try it the conventional way.

Paul